October 2009 Archives

Here's a cool article in the New York Times about a group of New York school kids who took on a Vespa restoration for their eigth-grade shop class.  It looks like they fixed it up pretty well, especially considering it had spent time at the bottom of a lake!

Ummm, does that mean that when I can't fix something that I'm not as smart as an eigth-grader?  Don't answer that!

"I never thought the kids would get so excited over this," Mr. Boissonnault said.

To keep the program going, the school has considered auctioning or raffling off the restored machines. Indeed, one frustrating thing for budding eighth-grade mechanics must be that they are too young to get driver's licenses.

"The worst part of the whole project," Mr. Boissonnault said, "is that they can't take it out for a ride."

Hmmm, I'm thinking that this is just way too over the top.  It is an interesting idea though.  I've seen Piaggio make some interesting items out of scooter parts.  For instance, they made a thermometer out of an old speedometer, and a clock out of a fenderlight headlight.  There is also someone making desk lamps out of old headsets.  However, this is the first chair I've seen. No word on how much it will cost.  If you have to ask...

Via Autoblog.

I couldn't resist posting about this one.  Someone in Italy appears to have made a one-off custom Vespa rocking horse.  They did a great job!  Wow, I wish you could buy one of those.  It would be in my house right now!  Great job...

Here's a link to the Italian site (with English translation).

Last weekend I went to one of my favorite car/motorcycle/scooter shows.  It is the Alameda All-Italian Day, which is held every year on the weekend of Columbus Day.  It is open to any vehicle that is Italian made. The thing I love most about this show is the relaxed attitude of the exhibitors.  People simply park their cars on a grass field, and stand around chatting.  The cars are the star attraction, but there are usually a handful of really nice motorcycles and scooters.  I rode over with a group of East Bay scooterists, so we represented! 

Here are my photos from the show!

Sorry that my posting has been light of late.  I've been really busy at work.  I have a lot of posts in the works.  In the mean time, I'll leave you with this cool comic cover art...

Tip of the hat to Scooter Swag.

With the rear wheel and hub out of the way, it is much easier to access the clutch.  Since I would have to wait for parts to put the rear wheel back on anyway, it seemed like a good time to tear into the clutch.  I pulled off the motor dust cover by removing two of the three bolts on the clutch cover.  Then I removed the rear motor bolt, and dropped the motor down at the rear.  After removing the final clutch cover nut, and the clutch cable off the clutch arm, I could then try to pull off the clutch cover. 

Normally the covers come right off, but this one felt stuck.  After a little struggling, it finally came off.  With it off, it was easy to tell why it was stuck - someone had put some sort of silicone gasket sealer on it.  This area doesn't get a lot of oil seepage, and the cover has a metal lip on it.  Gasket sealer isn't necessary.  I'll scrape it off, and install a new rubber o-ring on the clutch cover. 

With the cover off, I had access to the clutch.  I used an air-powered impact wrench with a wobble extender to get the clutch nut off.  It makes quick work of it, that's for sure.  Next, I used the special clutch removal tool to get the clutch off.  There are not many special tools that you need in Vespa repair work, but the handful of clutch and flywheel pullers are an absolute must-have.

On the left, you see the clutch in place on the motor with the pressure plate in the center.  I removed that plate to get access to the retaining nut.  The Super Sport clutch is fairly similar to those found on later other largeframe Vespas.

It is a fairly simple operation to get the pressure plate off the clutch.  I simply used a flat blade screw driver to push the retaining clip towards the center of the plate, and pulled the plate off the clutch.

With the rear hub off the motor, I could then inspect the area in an attempt to determine what was causing the grinding sound coming from that area.  I immediately noticed that the whole brake drum was filled with a fine powder.  I also noticed that the back side of the hub looked very shiny, so there was some rubbing clearly going on.  I had expected to find some rubbing on the outside of the rear brake backing plate, but I had not expected it on the back side of the hub!